52 THENEWYORKER,OCTOBER11, 2021
among its faithful. And, outside ortho-
doxy, large swaths of the Torah are sub-
ject to interpretation. Is a practice born
of ancient Egyptian feats of endurance
indispensable enough for us to continue
cutting one of the most sensitive parts
of the male anatomy, where any mis-
calculation may lead to tragedy?
Yet, even for highly assimilated Jews,
circumcision, according to Diane Wolf,
a sociologist at the University of Cali-
fornia at Davis, “is really the last ritual
to go.” In such families, she singles out
fathers as the main drivers of the prac-
tice. “What is the connection there, be-
tween masculinity and circumcision?”
she asked me. When it came to her own
son, she opted for the brit-shalom nam-
ing ceremony (a version of which, some-
times called the brit bat, is also per-
formed for girls). When her son asked
her why he wasn’t circumcised, she toldhim, “You are a Jew in your head and
your heart, not your penis.”
The question of whom circumcision
is for becomes even more fraught for So-
viet Jews in North America and Israel.
Sasha Senderovich, who teaches at the
University of Washington, and was born
in the Russian city of Ufa, said of the
post-Soviet foreskin, “It could be seen
as a Jewish bodily mark all its own—a
mark, for example, of a circumcision thatDAMSONS
Alas, good master, my wife desired some damsons
And made me climb, with danger of my life.
—Simpcox, “Henry VI, Part II.”1
It would take more than a clip round the ear
to bring me to my senses
as I tried to get clear
what exactly a United Ireland would mean to my
next-door neighbor.
His trenchcoat had been made by Thomas Burberry.
The last time I’d seen him he’d presented me with a pot of
jam for my journey
and a rumpled copy of “The Big Sleep.”
2
I’d set out that morning fortified by the aroma
of Nescafé that must have wafted over from as far away
as Brannigan’s.
I knew flax-holes were bog-holes with linnets.
I knew Uncle Pat’s Ford Prefect was a donkey cart
with a motor.
3
I also knew that, in June, 1954, the I.R.A. had raided Gough
Barracks in Armagh
and made off with a lorry-load of Sten and Bren guns.
The myxoma virus was introduced to Ireland that
same summer.
When we’d moved from Eglish to Collegelands
these damson trees were already mature.
Even though we’d now lived here for five years we were
still newcomers.
4
It would take more than a clip round the ear
to assuage my lifelong fear
of stretches of bog road like the one outside Urney
where we’d been stopped by soldiers in what I took for Jeeps.
In a novel by Raymond Chandler
a man may never lower his defenses
as he climbs toward the chandelier
to the accompaniment of tambourine and tabor.
When would I be done with the tuppenny world, the turbary?
It would take more than a clip round the ear
to bring me to my senses.5
By the time I’d heard of “A Coney Island of the Mind”
I knew it wasn’t the Coney Island to which Pat had driven
us a mere ten miles.
My mother had told me flax was pulverized
by boys who insisted on being boys.6
As I’d set out I had a cheer of encouragement
from another neighbor on his way to work in the
Moygashel linen mills.
Although I’d seen many of their kind die of myxomatosis
I’d acquired two fresh rabbits in Belfast.
I was equipped with a parachute, needless to say, and my
recurve bow.
The technical term for my mother’s drooping eyelids
was ptosis.7
As I tried to get clear
of the world of seed-surges and menses
so many held so dear
I carried that pot of jam and a sense of life being worthless.
I was still trying to fathom
why I should be attending the ritual cleansing at the altar
of a woman who had recently given birth.8
I can’t say I expected to move in the same orbit
as Yuri Gagarin, now I’d managed to kick away the ladder,
but I would have been glad to share the cloudberries left in
the punnet
I’d gathered from a north-facing slope in Mullaguttural.